


Liminal

by ValkyrieRaisingCain



Category: Chosen Series, Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Multi, Swearing, first person POV, multiple POVs, some violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 22:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14006142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyrieRaisingCain/pseuds/ValkyrieRaisingCain
Summary: Based on some ideas I've had for a future series and also some Raven Cycle and supernatural/liminal space inspiration to it.  Of course I slapped my Chosen characters into this universe.





	1. Venus: Bumfuck Nowhere

The house is cramped, old, and shitty. Immediately when I take my first breath in the threshold, I inhale ten pounds of dust. I hack out a lung and pull the collar of my t-shirt over my nose.  
Jade walks by me. “You ok?” she asks, setting down the boxes she had in her arms.  
I scowl at her. She’s the reason we moved to this dump in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Thought living somewhere that had no ties to my father would be good for me. I told her I didn’t need to move—I’m fine. But no, she didn’t care. What a great mom she is.  
“What do you think? You’re making me live in a house a dog wouldn’t shit in.”  
Her fists rest on her hips. "Do I need to find the swear jar already?"  
"No ma'am. Choking on dust bunnies is punishment enough."  
With a shake of her head, she walks back out to the car for more boxes.  
I should be helping with moving and unpacking. I'm too pissed to, and besides, our furniture isn't here until tomorrow. Why do anything but pile what we stuffed in the car all around the place? It's pointless until tomorrow. Plus, I haven't seen the house with my own eyes. Just the pictures Jade showed me once—once after she already bought the house.  
There's a main floor, cellar, and second floor. The main floor is four rooms: a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. The second floor is just a bedroom and bathroom. I don't check the cellar. I don't want to find a body or the remnants of a meth lab.  
This entire place is rundown and old. The bathrooms still have ugly floral wallpaper. The floors threaten to leave splinters in socks and bare feet. Some places on the wall have paint peeling.  
What a dump.  
I stomp back down the stairs. Jade's brought in most of the boxes and bags from the car. She tries to stop me from walking out. “Where are you going? I need your help moving these.”  
I pause with a hand on the door jamb. “If I can’t have a say in where I live, I’m choosing what my room’s walls look like—and that’s not Creamsicle Orange.”

I trudge back the way I came, lugging two cans of dark grey paint. The bag of rollers and paint trays bangs against my leg with each step. It keeps my mind distracted.  
My dad disappeared eight months ago. Left our house in the middle of the night and never came back. We had no idea why or where he'd gone. Two days later, the cops found his car—the only good car we had—on the side of a gravel road in Massachusetts. It wasn't wrecked, and there were no signs he was kidnapped. The car was pristine. No clues to where he was, if he was alive.  
We didn't get the car back since it's part of an open investigation. Even though that trail's cold, the cops kept the car impounded. Now Jade and me are stuck with a shitty green Tahoe older than me.  
Jade thought I was wrecked and anxious because everything in our hometown reminded me of Jensen. Not like I could be anxious because my dad's possibly dead. I was fine. She didn't even ask me if I was bugged by the pictures of dad or the sight of his office or favorite books or chair. She just upped and moved me after eight months. God...she did this all for her. Damn selfish. She didn't want reminders. Not me. Just pretending it was me that wanted this. Pretending I was closer to Jensen than I was.  
I stop walking. In the middle of my brooding, I swear I hear my name whispered. My head whips around. I’m alone on the sidewalk, a parking lot to my right and a copse of trees to my left. The only living things around here are me, some bugs, birds, and squirrels. I didn’t say my name—and I doubt any woodland animals said it because real life isn’t _Bambi_ or _A Bug’s Life_.  
Shaking my head, I keep going. Losing my damn mind after inhaling haunted house dust…in the middle the small town of Nowhere.  
I hear it again—a breathy whisper. This time, I think it’s coming from inside my head.  
‘Come here…Come to me…Venus…’  
My heart thunders. All the saliva’s sucked out of my mouth. An invisible string cinches around my gut and with it comes the urge to walk through the trees.  
The feeling disappears as quick as it took over me. I step back from the forest. The voice doesn’t speak again in the five minutes I stand there dumbfounded.  
I’m not gonna be able to stay sane here…am I?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and thank you for reading :) kudos and comments are appreciated. If you haven't yet, check out my other original works. Feel free to contact me on my tumblr, valkyrieraisingcain, if you want to know more or just want to chat. Thanks!  
> Also sorry for the spacing being shitty I'm too tired to fix it from being transferring from my word doc...


	2. Maddox: Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: some abuse shown, caution to anyone who might be affected

A warm breeze grazes the leaves of the trees not far off. The quaking aspens make their presence known above the other species. I take another deep breath, distancing myself farther from my conscience and body. The cars and trucks speeding past fade into the background. The rustling leaves quiet. My grip tightens on the magnet in my hand. I’m not where I was.  
A clearing—similar to the others, but most definitely a different one. They never show me the same location twice. This one is hidden underneath an arch of rock and surrounded by lush vegetation and trees on one side. A large, clear pond surrounds the other. Water trickles over stones somewhere unseen but nearby. Damp earth and pine-scented air fills my lungs. I turn around, feeling them come. One milky white eye. Eight eyes the color of pitch. The sight no longer concerns me.  
I don’t flinch as the one with eight eyes speaks. “What do you desire?” The words aren’t said aloud. They whisper through my head with the ease of a sigh. Her lips don’t move. “What do you wish for us to do?”  
“The only reason you speak to me is because I never ask for anything.” My voice is a roar compared to the silence of the forest. The chirp of birds is absent. Even the trickle of water has stopped. “ _’The one who desires nothing shall have everything from this place.’_ Those were some of the first words you spoke to me.”  
The woman with the milky eye angles her head. “Basir, then why do you come to us?”  
“You don’t leave me a choice. _You_ call _me_ here.”  
The women laugh in unison. “ _We_ do not call you here. The heart— _it_ —calls you here, Basir.”  
“My heart doesn’t tell me I need to come. The nightmares and voices you continue to send me do,” I fire back. Sleep is lost on me more often than not. Whispers constantly enter my mind. I see…things I shouldn’t—awake and asleep. Ever since I was eleven. Ever since we moved here. Ever since a man with eyes as white as the one woman’s placed his fingers to my forehead. Seven years of feeling as if you are insane will make you go insane.  
“ _It_ sees what is in you,” the black-eyed woman replies. “ _It_ has chosen you. And you must choose to accept it before the time comes.”  
“I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what ‘time’ you always are referring to.” I have heard nearly the same renditions of this advice over the past years. “You have to explain whatever the hell I need to do to get this curse off of me.”  
Their heads snap sharply to me—again in unison. Nine eyes narrow. “Your gift is not a curse, Basir. Never refer to it as such,” they say together. The pond is less clear now; the waters are murky.  
“Why do you always call me that? It isn’t my name.”  
The one-eyed woman smiles. “The name it has given you is much more important than the one your bearers gave you. Its meaning holds power—your gift.”  
I don’t have the opportunity to argue. Their eyes become blinding as the sun. They open their mouths, and the same light pours from them. Both throw up a hand, a tattoo of an eye glowing on each.  
A deep shout inside my skull sends me to my knees. Covering my ears with palms does no help.  
_“One’s blood is in the forest, dark and deceiving._  
 _The one who bears knowledge must lead the way._  
 _They must choose what to sacrifice to end the pain in the heart._  
 _Eyes will bring sight of reality._  
 _The motivator will flee, but return in stride._  
 _A translator must bring peace between threat and friend._  
 _The one who bears feeling must die.”_  
High-pitched screams pierce through my mind; the pain blinds me. Warmth flows from my ears. I can’t take it.  
“STOP.”  
My phone is ringing. I open my eyes. The magnet has fallen from my grasp and next to the others near my knee. I pick up my phone. The initials PM are displayed on the screen.  
“Yes?” My heart is slowing to normal. I still sound out of breath. It makes her pause, but she does not comment.  
“She’s here.”  
I stretch my legs out in front of me. “Who?” My phone chimes. I move it away from my face to glance at the blurry photo of a girl around my age. Her only discernable feature is her stunning red hair.  
“I can see why you are no longer in a photography class.”  
“Shut up, Strange,” Lina mutters. “The girl—she’s here. Now. She’s real.”  
I sigh. I don’t want to have this argument again. “I didn’t doubt you. You didn’t have to stalk her to get proof.”  
“I did because Amel told me about her in the first place—I didn’t want you to still think I was crazy.”  
I check my watch and mentally curse. I should have been moving five minutes ago. Being late isn’t something I want to deal with now. “I talk to people who are not real. Why wouldn’t I believe you about Amel’s warning?”  
“I’m not used to anyone believing me. Collecting proof is a habit I guess.”  
I slide off the picnic table and walk across the grass. “We’ll have to talk about this tomorrow. I’m late getting to the house.”  
“Diner or library?”  
I unlock my car. “Library first. 10:30 sound fine?”  
“Yeah. Get home safe. My moms will cover if he doesn’t believe you,” Lina says.  
“Thank you—and tell them the same. I will see you tomorrow.”  
“Bye Strange.”  
I hang up, head hitting the leather headrest of the seat. Ten minutes until curfew is over. I have a fifteen-minute journey back to town. Let’s hope I can drive fast.  
I leave the darkened rest stop behind. Drive back to the hum of the highway. The weightless, foggy feeling retracts itself from my mind. Time passes once again as it should.

He is waiting for me on the porch when I pull in at 10:01. The end of his cigarette glows red in the shadows.  
I force myself out of the car and up the stairs. His hand presses into my chest before I can enter the house.  
“You’re late.”  
“By a minute.”  
The retort earns me a scowl. He crams the cigarette between his lips and yanks up my sleeve. The smoldering end of the cigarette burns a circle into my skin. I hardly wince as I watch his face.  
He flicks the spent cigarette away. “One for every minute you’re late. You know the rules,” he growls. “Now get inside. Finish your homework. I don’t want to see you out of your room until breakfast. Your curfew will be cut again if this happens one more time.”  
I yank open the door. He grabs my arm, fingers digging into the burn. “Are we clear?” he asks, low and slow.  
“Yes,” I answer through gritted teeth, “sir.”  
He releases me and lights another cigarette. The conversation is done.  
The urge to slam my door lasts long enough I nearly do it. Instead, I shut it calmly and find my calculus notebook. From memory, I write out the words the women said. Half the pages in this notebook are notes from that place, all written in code only I and Lina (partially) know. Can’t risk him finding it—the interrogations would lead to my lockdown.  
I return the notebook to my bag and go to the bathroom off of my bedroom. I have to clean the burn before it gets infected.  
As I am applying antibiotics and taping a gauze patch over the burn, I catch a figure in my peripheral. I don’t look up when I speak. “You shouldn’t be in here.”  
My twin leans against the doorframe. “You shouldn’t let him do those things to you,” Kerrianne says.  
“I don’t let our father do anything,” I snap. “I have no control over the situation.”  
“Then tell someone that can help. A cop or that teacher you talk to sometimes—”  
I chuckle, shake my head. “Out of anyone, I assumed you realized the amount of influence he has over the entire town.” I look back at her. “Aiden is a damn successful and well-known lawyer. No charges would stick to him. He has the ability to talk his way out of the situation—justify his actions and make me out to be a rebellious, dumbass kid.”  
She crosses her arms. “You won’t know until you try.”  
I slam my hand on the counter. “Ratting him out won’t do me any good. He will do worse…make my life more of a hell. Silence is my best option, Kerrianne.”  
Kerrianne sighs and walks out. I grip the lip of the counter, waiting for the anger vibrating through me to settle.  
God, I wish everything was as simple as Kerrianne thinks.


End file.
